Each moment of mindfulness is a moment of purification.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

The practice of meditation is not about achieving states of bliss but about seeing things as they really are.

The more we understand our mind, the more we understand the world.

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but through understanding and through letting go.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

The Buddha's teachings are not a religion, but a science of mind.

The greatest obstacle to meditation is our expectation about what it should be.

If you love someone, the greatest gift you can give them is your presence.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease.

Just know what is happening in your mind - not happy or sad about it, not attached. If you suffer, see it, know it, be empty.

Recognize the emptiness of all phenomena, but do not become attached to emptiness itself.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

In the monastery of your body, the monk of your mind must stay in retreat.

The biggest prison is the one we build in our own mind.

What we learn about the world is colored by the way we approach it.

Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.

When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the earth.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.

Just as the wise do not take a mirage to be water, nor an echo to be a voice, so the enlightened do not take the world to be real.

When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

The practice of Zen mind is beginner's mind. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

The true path is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing.

Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

The mind of the past is ungraspable; the mind of the future is ungraspable; the mind of the present is ungraspable.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately.

Start from where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce.